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Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Stephen is 100% correct. You have to change names when translating and it doesn't matter how the author wrote them. Shiliew, bon kurei and jinbe are names translated by people who have no idea what translation means. It's not about getting them 100 percent the same, it's getting the idea and across. Jimbei, Shiryuu and Bon Clay are better names in English.

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Originally Posted by The True Saviour

Stephen is 100% correct. You have to change names when translating and it doesn't matter how the author wrote them. Shiliew, bon kurei and jinbe are names translated by people who have no idea what translation means. It's not about getting them 100 percent the same, it's getting the idea and across. Jimbei, Shiryuu and Bon Clay are better names in English.

Shiliew and Jinbe, sure, but by translating Bon Kurei to Bon Clay, you lose the holiday naming theme of the female Baroque Works agents, which Mr. 2 has since he doesn't have a companion.

Also, Jinbe is a transliteration, not a translation, but since Stephen deals in translations it's not a big surprise that his name was changed. (though now that I think about it, it wasn't even him who changed it, given that Jinbe was first mentioned back in Arlong Park)

Also, I've noticed that a big stink about "Zolo" is that Viz shouldn't keep it like that since it was written multiple times in his bounty posters, but isn't that kind of contradictory?

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Originally Posted by The True Saviour

Stephen is 100% correct. You have to change names when translating and it doesn't matter how the author wrote them. Shiliew, bon kurei and jinbe are names translated by people who have no idea what translation means. It's not about getting them 100 percent the same, it's getting the idea and across. Jimbei, Shiryuu and Bon Clay are better names in English.

Shiryuu I'll give you. Jimbei I'm impartial about, because it's one letter that hardly changes the sound, and I doubt changes the meaning. It could go either way. But Bon Clay. Nah, no. First time I read through, I had no idea what the relevance of that on the end of his Mr. 2 title was. I thought it was just a nickname, or his real name he's super attached to and didn't want to drop. Hell even if it had been Bon Kurei, I doubt I would have gotten it, since that's not a well known holiday outside of Japan. Golden Week at least you can tell by hearing it it's some kind of event.

In my mind the ideal way to handle Bentham's (just gonna use his real real name to prevent confusion) code names would have been something like Mr 2/Miss Bon Kurie. The Bon Kurie bit exists to emphasise the duality of Bentham's gender, but that effect is lost if it can't be read as a day/holiday like the rest of the Baroque Works female officer names (save for Miss Doublefinger I guess, what the hell was with that?). Yeah, it's adding a word that wasn't there in the original, but it makes the information Oda was trying to convey to Japanese readers crystal clear to a western audience.

The other issue with Bentham is obviously dancing around the use of the word Okama, since it doesn't seem to translate directly in any way that wouldn't be considered a slur in English, and doesn't really get the message across as it is. Maybe Drag Queen could be a substitute, but then you've got the task of reworking the Newkama Land and Kamabakka Kingdom puns around that. (Though Viz making the latter 'Kamabakka Queendom' was a pretty solid choice, given what they had to work with.)

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Originally Posted by FrankyFan

I'm lost, why is Jimbei better than Jinbe?

Objectively speaking it's not, because there simply is no such thing as a correct transliteration when it comes to names written in katakana. I think that Jimbei does look more natural in English in terms of spelling and it has been around as the de facto spelling for ages already so people have gotten used to it, and that that's why people think it's "better", but in the end it's all down to personal preference.

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Originally Posted by sanji''s_dad

He is called Aladdin don't go by mangastream's translations they only care about getting it out as soon as possible they have called him Aladdin before as well so it's stupid for them to call him Aladine even spell checker wants to correct the name when you type Aladine lol.

Spellcheck doesn't recognize my last name, guess thats an error too.

--- Update From New Post Merge ---

Originally Posted by Kaido King of the Beasts

Yeah, I understand Stephen's viewpoint pretty well - not only is it his responsibility to translate the manga into English, but he's also got to make the manga more accessible and sensible for English speakers to understand. Also he's got to maintain consistency, a la Zolo, so unlike Mangastream, the wiki, and the fans, he can't just change the name when Oda provides a spelling.

You didn't understand what he wrote at all then.
Oda is not "providing a spelling".

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

For anyone who doesn't have the time or inclination to listen through the whole thing I had a quick listen, skipping through a bit, I'll admit, and picked up a couple of interesting things.For starters, Lake Aprico/Apricokko. So like, you might have noticed in the Mangastream version that while it is described as a lake in the surrounding text boxes, the full name of the place does not include the word 'lake.' It's written in full there as 'Apricokko,' not 'Lake Apricokko.' And the reason for this is that in Japanese grammar, the descriptor for a place like a lake or a mountain or whatever goes after the name, so, 'Aprico Lake,' in that language. BUT the Japanese word for lake is 'Ko,' so Oda was going for kind of a phonetic pun, fusing that to the end of the word apricot for that cool double co/ko sound. Which is neat, but of course, doesn't translate. Mangastream likes to just leave jokes that don't translate in with a little footnote explanation, but the one here ("The Ko in Apricokko is spelt with the character for lake") feels kinda half-assed given what the joke actually is. You almost have to wonder if they just didn't get it.The thing with Judge/Jajji is mostly about aesthetics, making a name that looks and sounds right, and is easy to read. Stephen gets kinda abstract talking about how Judge's name is phoneticized differently from the rest of the Vinsmokes. The way it reads is less Japanese in one way or another. He wanted to capture the image of Papa Vinsmoke as a figure of, well, judgement, both conveying his enormous authority and literally describing the way he's judging his son. Personally I think this is fine, the thing that made the Vinsmoke family names work for me was the clock motif, not the repeating ji sound. Judge has already stepped away from the clock, so it makes sense to just capture the literal meaning of his name instead.Also everyone in the podcast is reading Germa 66 aloud as 'Germa double six,' but I've had it in my head the whole time as 'Germa sixty-six.' Is there a reason the name might be read as two single digit numbers instead of as a two digit one? Or does this one just come down to personal preference?Anyway I listened to only a fraction of the thing, really, so there's probably plenty more to find and discuss in there for anyone willing to give it a listen.

--- Update From New Post Merge ---

I don't know where all my paragraph breaks went in that post, and the edit tool isn't working for me right now. I'm gonna come back and make this less of an ugly block of text later when the site works.

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Originally Posted by Captain M

I don't know where all my paragraph breaks went in that post, and the edit tool isn't working for me right now. I'm gonna come back and make this less of an ugly block of text later when the site works.

You may be waiting a while. It's been like this for quite a while. If you put in < br >< /br> (without the spaces), it'll break the lines for you.

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Originally Posted by Captain M

I don't know where all my paragraph breaks went in that post, and the edit tool isn't working for me right now. I'm gonna come back and make this less of an ugly block of text later when the site works.

You can still use break line [ br ] [ /br ] (without spaces) to format your post

Last edited by Vectorkov; July 19th, 2016 at 08:50 PM.
Reason: ninja'ed by faith

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Originally Posted by Captain M

Also everyone in the podcast is reading Germa 66 aloud as 'Germa double six,' but I've had it in my head the whole time as 'Germa sixty-six.' Is there a reason the name might be read as two single digit numbers instead of as a two digit one? Or does this one just come down to personal preference?

In Japanese, Germa 66 is rendered as "ジェルマ 66", with furigana over the 66 that instruct the reader to pronounce it as Germa Double-Six.

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Originally Posted by Captain M

Also everyone in the podcast is reading Germa 66 aloud as 'Germa double six,' but I've had it in my head the whole time as 'Germa sixty-six.' Is there a reason the name might be read as two single digit numbers instead of as a two digit one? Or does this one just come down to personal preference?

Because the Japanese pronounces it that way; ジェルマ66（ダブルシックス）is pronounced Jeruma Dabburu Shikkusu or Germa Double Six in English. I think Mangastream explained it in a footnote when Germa 66 was first mentioned. Although I always say Germa Sixty-Six in my head, so it's not too big of a deal.

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Thanks for the info guys. I doubt much is gonna come of the difference between double six and sixty-six, but you never know with Oda. These posting/editing issues are damn annoying, how long have they been a thing?

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Re: VIZ/Mangastream Comparison Questions and Archive

Listened to a bit of the podcast again this week. Mostly the chapter recap bit, cos that's where my interests lie. Really the main thing to takeaway from it is that Sanji's "Is a birth father really that special?" seems to have originally been, and is written in English to be ambiguous as to if Sanji's addressing himself or Judge.